


Somebody's Heartbreak

by sparklebitca



Category: NSYNC
Genre: Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 11:12:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17364851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklebitca/pseuds/sparklebitca
Summary: “you left a stain on every one of my good days” – matchbox 20





	Somebody's Heartbreak

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Matchbox 20 lyrics challenge soooo many years ago

Lance's at a party, somewhere in the Hills (except he knows where he is, he's off of Mulholland past Justin's place, it's just easier to think of these things in terms of somewhere, some night, because he doesn't find that old reassuring comfort in details anymore, and it's getting harder and harder to remember when he did) and he's drunk.

He's not so drunk that he can't think, but he's more than, oh yes, definitely more than buzzed. He's at that hazy, happy place between the fourth and fifth martini, where the gin starts hitting velvety-sharp under his tongue and his blood rolls warm and steady in pulses in the empty spaces between his fingers. 

_Amputated_ , he thinks disjointedly, letting the thought curl a smooth smile across his face, knowing he looks like a relaxed, Polaroid-permanent version of himself. That ready smile doesn't even begin to reflect the ghosts of hands that aren't holding his, and sure, why not take it there? After all, he's a veteran too. You just can't see his scars unless you know where to look, and that's not something he lets a lot of people know these days. People who don't already know, that is. 

There are some really beautiful people at this party. They're all sitting on couches with their long legs crossed gracefully, like they don't have to think about how their thighs fit into the crooks of their knees. Or they're standing by the pool so that the underwater light reflects wavering patterns onto their bodies, highlighting the curves of their elbows as they balance their drinks in their hands. There are cheekbones to die for over by the lawn, and he would bet anything those cheekbones are natural, lucky assholes with God-given delicacy on those pretty, eager faces. 

What's sick is that the eagerness doesn't even register with anyone. It's just there, like those sharp, perfect cheekbones, like the light dancing from the ripples of the water onto linen pants, like the tension of the muscle in those casually crossed legs, like the absent pain in his hands, where he always thought it would be his legs that hurt him in the end. His legs or his heart. No, like, physically. For real. 

He wishes it could be past his bedtime. It feels late enough for that. It's going to be such a big fucking pain to drive home. 

What's sick is he can feel himself going into the house before he even starts moving. He can feel his legs carrying him into the plush, carpeted depths of luxury, waltzing him into some back bedroom, too far back for the coats and purses and coke to migrate. He's never been to this house before, but he already knows where he can lay down for a bit. 

"Can I crash for, like, half an hour?" he'll ask with that smooth smile. 

"Sure, man, sure." 

What's sick is he's done this before, and he'll do it again. It's sad to be twenty-six and already burdened with memories you really don't want, but it's sadder to be him, everything he is, everything he's done, everything he has, and still be that twenty-six year old. Because if he lived in the middle of the country and worked at some middle-of-the-country state university, a small adjunct faculty office with sun-faded walls and hours posted on the door, he would be a different, different boy. And he wants to be happy, and he is. But he's not. No one is, right? No one really is, not that adjunct professor in Omaha, not Tom freakin Cruise, not him. So it doesn't matter that he's rich and famous (which is said with a laugh even in his head). Because he could be an immigrant working illegally at Carl's Jr. and still be sad. He could be anybody, and his shine could still be tarnished by experience. 

What's sick is maybe he doesn't care. 

 

________________________________________

 

_"It feels . . . I don't know."_

_"What?"_

_"I don't know. Like. Like I made a mistake."_

_"About?"_

_"I don't know. The whole damn thing."_

_"Are you. Dude, are you fucking smoking?"_

_"No."_

_"Dude. I can fucking hear you inhale."_

_"So I'm inhaling, so what? Breathing."_

_"Nuh uh, you're fucking smoking."_

_"Jesus, okay, fine. Happy? Like that has anything to do with anything. Like you've never smoked."_

_"Okay, okay, god. I just thought . . . "_

_"What?"_

_"Nothing."_

_"No, what?"_

_"Nothing, man. Nothing."_

_"It's fucked up, okay? That what you wanted to hear? I'm fucked up."_

_"Yeah, you know, I could have told you that."_

_"Well, I didn't ask you."_

_"Yeah. I know you didn't."_

 

________________________________________

 

Lance has this sense that he's walking through the mahogany corridors of some old dream of his, nothing he's dreamed of in the last decade, but nebulous images from his childhood, when the rough, stucco walls of his house felt both confining and comforting, when the lazy sun slanting through the limp, sheer linen of his bedroom curtains made him squint and turn into the pillow. Behind his eyelids, he could quietly want, and want hard, always stupid, stupid things, like a really _big_ pool, or a Jaguar, or so much money he could go anywhere he wanted anytime he wanted to go, or a house without walls that made your knuckles bleed. 

He had been happy. He had always been happy. It wasn't a question of that. It wasn't a _question_ at all. 

He finds that inevitable bedroom. There are always twelve or thirteen bedrooms in houses like this, and they all have different color schemes, with an underlying coordination, like little wood sculptures on the nightstands, or Hockney prints on the walls. This bedroom has purple - _eggplant_ walls - with cream trim, and dark cherrywood furniture, and a bed that's as big as the Gobi. 

It's the lighting fixtures, he realizes dimly, that's the theme. They're all those copper-plated, frosted-glass things, wall-sconces and chandeliers and bedside lamps. 

He sits on the bed and wishes he was at a club. The anonymity of clubs is better than the anonymity of houses. The slightly sticky leather couches of any VIP section in LA, the glowing red lights shining through the white fabric ceilings (although red's on the way out, and blue's been out since 2002), the thousand interchangeable girls in their black midriff tops and their awful, 80s-style, feathery skirts. The clink of the ice as it melts against the vodka. The casual disinterest, which _is_ interest, of everyone in the room. 

He really gets a kick out of all that sometimes. Which is probably sick as well. Whatever. 

The pillows aren't like his pillows back home, his old pillows from Sears, the kind that got nice and lumpy after a few months of hard sleeping. Those pillows were perfect for wanting more than you had, even if you already had it pretty good. But these are goose-down, soft and folding in around his open mouth, yielding, growing moist. 

If he stays very quiet, he can forget that he's going to have to get up again. 

He's not fucking desperate. He's good. It's good. It's all really good. 

When it hits him, it hits him hard, and he finds he can want pretty badly into those nice, expensive pillows too, because he was there, at that club, seeing those lights, watching those girls, and the thigh pressed against his made everything amusing, in such a way that he didn't have to care about anything else, he could just sit and let the whole scene wash over him, all because of that thigh and the smile that came with it. 

There's this dull thwapping sound, and it's his fist hitting the mattress. He remembers hitting the stucco once, when he was fifteen, and it took over two years for the scars to totally fade. He remembers Justin examining his hand with over-embellished awe, because Justin didn't have any scars like that back then, nothing persistent. 

He thinks maybe next time he talks to Justin, he'll remind him of that. 

He's two seconds from tears, which is totally fucking pathetic, because this was not that big a deal, this is nothing he hasn't done before, this is something he's working through, will work through. 

When his phone vibrates in his back pocket, he doesn't move to answer it. He can't think of a single person he wants to talk to right now. 

 

________________________________________

 

_"So y'all broke up."_

_"You noticed."_

_"Hard to miss."_

_"Oh, fuck you."_

_"Hey man, I'm just saying."_

_"So what, you're rubbing it in?"_

_"Right, that's what I'm doing. Jackass."_

_"Well, I don't know."_

_"Guess you don't. Rubbing it in, fuck. What the hell you take me for? Rubbing it in."_

_"Okay, I get it, I'm sorry. I'm just, you know."_

_"Man, you need to chill, snapping at your friends like that."_

_"I said I'm sorry. I need to write it out, what?"_

_"Look, no, I'm sorry, I guess, okay? I just called to say. You know."_

_"What?"_

_" I'm sorry."_

_"What for? Not like you did anything."_

_"No shit, jackass. I'm sorry it happened. Or didn't happen. Whatever. He seemed . . . "_

_"I know. Shit. It's okay, I'm sorry. I'm being an asshole. I'll get over it. Hell, I ended it, right?"_

_"Right. Right."_

_"But, uh. You know. Thanks."_

_"Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man, yeah."_

_"Yeah."_

_"Hey, you wanna get together or something? We don't leave 'til Sunday, and I got some shit in Palm Desert tomorrow, you could come with and we could hit Vegas."_

_"Yeah, no, thanks, but I think. I think I'm staying in. For a bit. Not long."_

_"You'll call me, right?"_

_"You know I will."_

_"Okay, well. You know I love you, man."_

_"You too, Justin."_

 

________________________________________

 

The next morning, Lance wakes up in that bedroom, and the walls aren't eggplant at all. They're just purple, and the trim is just white, and the lighting fixtures are just brass. 

He's got seven messages on his phone, and six are from Justin. 

 

________________________________________

 

_He's on his back on the bed, and the thighs that straddle him are lean and tan and lickable, so he does, raising his head just enough to coax a moan as his hands stroke and smooth, down and around firm, firm muscle._

_"You have such a great ass," he whispers, and Jesse laughs huskily as he lowers his mouth, and the rasp of breath against Lance’s skin nearly sends him arching, nearly makes him buck right the fuck off the bed. Jesse's licking like a tease, sucking so shallowly, and he rubs against Lance's chest. Lance’s trapped, he can't get any friction, and he likes it that way. They've got to do it to each other._

_Jesse’s squirming just a bit because Lance knows how he likes to be grabbed, a little rough and a little needy. Lance can't wait to get his hands on those hips, but he holds back, because he likes to wait too._

_Lance's eyes are closed, but he can just see Jesse's face, flushed under that dark tan, hair falling over his sweaty forehead, trying to take Lance in as his cheeks hollow with the effort, and god, he looks so great like that, Lance knows from a different angle. He's been wanting to come for a real long time, but Lance won't let him 'til he asks for it and Jesse knows it. They know each other so well at this point, and Lance can barely remember wanting to fuck anyone else._

_Lance backs off for a moment, rubbing hard, over the strain of Jesse’s lower back, over his ass, over those gorgeous, lean hips, and fuck, he wants to shove him down._

_'You're the best fuck, you know?" he mutters, right before Jesse deep-throats him all wet and perfect. "Fuck, I love you."_

 

________________________________________

 

He doesn't listen to any of the messages.


End file.
